Monty Python would think twice about making Life of Brian today because
religious fervour is “back with a vengeance”, according to one of its stars.

Terry Jones, one of the Pythons, said that religion was now a far hotter topic than it was in 1979, the year that the film lampooning the Christian Church was released.

In particular, making a film satirising Islam would be pretty unthinkable, he said, citing the fatwa issued against Sir Salman Rushdie when he wrote The Satanic Verses.

Looking back on the release of Life of Brian, Jones said: “At the time, religion seemed to be on the back burner and it felt like kicking a dead donkey. It’s come back with a vengeance and we’d think twice about making it now.”

Would he make a similar film about Muslims? “Probably not, looking at Salman Rushdie. I suppose people would be frightened,” he said.

Jones, 69, was part of the Monty Python line-up alongside Graham Chapman, Michael Palin, Eric Idle, John Cleese and Terry Gilliam. He directed the comedy, about a young man who is mistaken for the Messiah, and claimed to be surprised that it attracted such controversy.

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It was effectively banned by local councils across Britain. Yet Jones told Radio Times: “I never thought it would be as controversial as it turned out. I took the view it wasn’t blasphemous. It was heretical because it criticised the structure of the church and the way it interpreted the Gospels.”

In November 1979, John Cleese and Michael Palin took part in a televised debate with Malcolm Muggeridge and the Bishop of Southwark, Mervyn Stockwood, who denounced it as blasphemous.

The debate is to be recreated in a BBC4 drama, Holy Flying Circus, which will be shown later this month.

Tim Rice, who hosted the original debate, said those who accused it of blasphemy were misundertanding its content. “Once you saw the film, you realised they were not mocking Jesus or any religion, but the followers," he said. “It revealed the fanaticism of dim-witted people who’d follow anything."